Please forgive me for this very indulgent, doting-mama post, but. Those little fingers. The concentration. The triumphant smile when he gets it right.

A few days ago we were talking about how he'll be turning three soon.

Now?
No, not yet. In January.
Now?
No, not now... Look, this is how you show you're three.

Since then he's been practising lots, and then on Saturday he wanted to know how to do all the numbers up to ten. So I showed him that, and how to count on your fingers, though we got a bit stuck at ten. Because don't you know that to do ten is one and zero, mama? The rest, however, he had a good go at.

The cuteness of it just kills me. The way he has to mould his hand and pin down his fingers. It reassures me that, even though he is growing up, even though he is getting to the stage where counting comes as easy as ABC and he is really going to be a whole three years old in January, there's plenty of the baby about him yet. Well, just a little bit at least.